NBA Playoffs 2012: Philadelphia 76ers Have No Shot in Game 7

A trip to the Eastern Conference finals is up for grabs.Drew Hallowell/Getty Images

The Philadelphia 76ers are too young. They're on the road in Boston. The Celtics have been here and done this before. The veterans have an extra day off to rest their older bodies. The "Big Three" won't let the Celtics lose this game.

Game 7 in Boston is going to be epic, and I'll be surprised if it's not another defensive battle to the end.

For those of you who can't appreciate this kind of basketball, I just feel sorry that you can't see the beauty in great defense. Have there been some tough stretches of shooting? Most certainly. But even the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder go cold.

These teams just don't make it easy.

This is not to say that the scoring wouldn't be better if you matched up either one of these Eastern Conference teams against one of the remaining Western Conference teams. But hopefully, you get my point.

There just haven't been too many prolonged stretches of great offense mostly because of the great defense.

The Sixers finally seemed to consistently take the ball to the rack, and that definitely helped. When Philadelphia's offense has been at its worst, you saw them settling for a number of long jump shots back to back to back to...well, just too frequently. It seemed to happen in the third quarter of every loss.

But one of the best stretches of offense from this team came in the second half in Game 6 when Lou Williams, Jrue Holiday and Evan Turner all drove into the paint to create plays. Whether the results were layups, trips to the charity stripe or dimes, the results were good.

After Philly's Game 4 comeback, where their offense dropped 61, I would've put money on (prayed for) their offense continuing to be hot. I thought they finally broke through and were starting to click offensively—not quite.

Will it happen again after a strong second half Wednesday night? Really, it doesn't matter.

The Sixers don't need to hit triple digits. They've only done it once in 12 games this postseason—a 109-92 win over Chicago in Game 2 of the first round. Yet, they've won six other games, and they're just one away from the Eastern Conference finals.

If they don't allow more than 20 points in a quarter, a feat they achieved in Game 6, they could beat anybody.

With their defense and Jrue Holiday, Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner ballin' for Broad Street, you've got to give them a fighter's chance.